[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Predictability alters information flow during action observation in human electrocorticographic activity

Qin et al., 2023, Cell Reports — Neuroscience

Patterns: [Relationships](https://dsrpevidence.org/pattern/relationships)

## In short

Action perception couples a bottom-up sensory stream (action) with a top-down predictive stream (reaction), and predictability re-weights the feedforward/feedback balance.

## What they found (results)

Intracranial electrocorticography across precentral, supramarginal and visual cortices showed that embedding motor acts in predictable meaningful sequences increased top-down beta-band information flow from precentral to supramarginal sites, while suppressing bottom-up high-gamma visual responses — a re-weighting of the feedforward/feedback balance by predictability.

## What they set out to do (purpose)

To determine how information exchange across the action observation network changes when isolated motor acts are embedded in meaningful, predictable sequences.

## Abstract

The action observation network (AON) has been extensively studied using short, isolated motor acts. How activity in the network is altered when these isolated acts are embedded in meaningful sequences of actions remains poorly understood. Here we utilized intracranial electrocorticography to characterize how the exchange of information across key nodes of the AON-the precentral, supramarginal, and visual cortices-is affected by such embedding and the resulting predictability. We found more top-down beta oscillation from precentral to supramarginal contacts during the observation of predictable actions in meaningful sequences compared to the same actions in randomized, and hence less predictable, order. In addition, we find that expectations enabled by the embedding lead to a suppression of bottom-up visual responses in the high-gamma range in visual areas. These results, in line with predictive coding, inform how nodes of the AON integrate information to process the actions of others.

These researchers were not testing DSRP. The finding is theirs; the correspondence to DSRP is drawn by this site.

[Source](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113432)